There seems to be an ongoing discussion about names and descriptions of things in our industry, particularly when it comes to the seemingly hotly-debated phrases “print service provider” and “marketing service provider”, as well as their acronym counterparts, “PSP” and “MSP”. Cary Sherburne sparked some debate last year with her post on Print CEO about “PSP”. There have been more recent points of discussion, as well. WhatTheyThink’s Peer Groups blog has discussed what encompasses a company that bills itself as a “marketing service provider”. On Printing Impressions’ blog a few days ago, Margie Dana expressed her distaste for printing companies that bill themselves as marketing service providers. Dr. Joe also weighed in, providing his thoughts on how printers should approach marketing services.

All of the aforementioned posts make a number of great points, some call for new or different terminology to be used, and others call out vendors and industry analysts/consultants (like myself) for causing confusion by instituting these terms in the first place. Vendors often use these terms to describe their clients, and I certainly have used them in many of my writings for InfoTrends, although I try to mix it up a little for variety’s sake. To be frank, I see the discussion about the use of these specific terms as a bit silly at face value. That’s not to say that terminology is not important, but I think this specific discussion really leads to larger issues that are happening within the industry, mostly dealing with structural change and transitioning that many print businesses have been going through. (more…)

Whether you’ve been testing multi-channel marketing or are onto your 50th project, you always want to generate the highest responses you can get. If you’re considering including outbound tele-marketing to confirm data accuracy prior to mailing a printed control, then sampling the data also gives you an opportunity to collect additional data both on the company and the prospect. All new data captured during this phase should be considered as part of the creative criteria when developing segmented mail drops and other contact points.

Another tactic is to parse your data for gender specific mailing drops. This requires manipulating the data for universal count breakdown to determine value of prospects by gender. The creative development portion should include variations of the print (and all derivatives) to include theme, color, illustrations and if possible, physical shape.

Here’s why.
Everybody responds to images that are familiar and it’s easier to imbed your message when the prospect likes what they see and have opened up paths to their frontal cortexes to you. I know, that really sounds insidious, but essentially, if your message does not get there, then you’re not getting the R.O.I. you deserve.
(more…)

Learn how to wield data
The days of static messages being mass mailed to untested lists are rapidly coming to a close. The mass communications theories of the 60’s are being replaced with the personalization technology of the 21st Century. Savvy marketers are enjoying the benefits of parsing data to version messages and illustrative materials for these segmented prospects. This clever tactic insures that the right person now gets the best pitch with the right offers, in a specific time whether in print or on-line. It requires that data is collected, cleaned, massaged and deployed.
(more…)

Personalized URLs in combination with direct mail or email campaigns have emerged as a valuable marketing tool. A Personalized URL (PURL) is a web page or microsite that is tailored to an individual visitor. A common example of a PURL is a web page with a URL such as www.retailstore.com/johnsmith, where “John Smith” is a target prospect or customer who receives a direct-mail or email communications that encourages him to visit the web page. For each recipient within the campaign, the web address is unique and personalized to the recipient. The content of the web page (PURL) should also be tailored to each recipient through the use of variable fields allowing pages to be linked to a database that contains information about each potential visitor.

PURLs are a stark contrast to a GURL, or generic URL, which is more common in direct mail and email campaigns. For example www.phonecompany.com/SummerSavings where PhoneCompany is offering the same call to action to everyone who receives a campaign offering discounts to new customers during a certain time period (I think I’ve received 3 this week!) If the offer is compelling and the design is effective, a GURL can work pretty well. But a variety of research (PODi.org, Aberdeen, Jupiter) tells us that personalization offers a significant lift over generic campaigns, but personalization comes at a price.
(more…)

It’s ruffled quite a few feathers—the coverage of the Borrell Associates report “Direct Mail Doomed, Long Live Email.” According to the report, direct mail has begun a precipitous decline from which it will never fully recover. Borrell is projecting a 39% decline for direct mail over the next five years, from $49.7 billion in annual ad spending in 2008 to $29.8 billion by the end of 2013.

I understand the point here, and certainly, such trends are ominous. But I learned something by cutting my teeth in industry analysis and research by working with TrendWatch GA / The Industry Measure from its inception. That is that all of these reports are snapshots in time, and they must be looked at that way.
(more…)

Way back in September ‘08, I talked about a study that InfoTrends conducted entitled “Trans Meets Promo… Is It More Than Market Hype?” and I said that I would be posting some high-level results from that study on The Digital Nirvana. Well… that didn’t exactly happen in 2008. However, since everyone is putting on their soothsayer hats to proclaim what they think will happen in the next 12 months, I thought I would present some of our study’s results and give some insight into what the world can expect for TransPromo in 2009.

To give a general overview of the study, InfoTrends surveyed consumers, transaction document owners, direct marketers, and print service providers about the use of direct mail, transaction documents, e-Presentment, and TransPromo. While the primary focus of this study was related to TransPromo, there were a number of direct marketing-related questions asked as well. There were also a number of interviews and case studies conducted of companies that have successfully implemented TransPromo applications. Below are some intriguing results from the study.

• - Consumer respondents spend an average of two to three minutes each reviewing statements; 20% of consumers spend five minutes or more.
• - Consumer respondents still prefer to receive bills via the mail; 44% of respondents prefer mail with an additional 18% preferring to receive transaction documents via mail and Internet .
• - 68% of direct marketer respondents who include promotional messages in transactional documents are printing at least some of those messages directly on the statement.
• - 54.4% of document owner respondents produce less than 100,000 bills or statements per month.
• - Print service provider respondents expressed that the average number of unique addresses included in transaction print jobs is 36,000, and the median is 3,000.

Consumers spend a significant amount of time reviewing their statements, which can be capitalized upon by implementing TransPromo onto statements. Direct Marketers are clearly taking advantage of statement viewership by placing promotional messages directly on statements, which can also be viewed through e-Presentment.  There is also a significant opportunity for print service providers to take advantage of mid-market TransPromo opportunties, as many are well-equipped to handle these volumes.

InfoTrends is formulating a road map for trends in TransPromo we expect to be prominent for 2009. Our road map is based on our own primary research, past trends, current & future vendor and service provider initiatives, and a little bit of guesswork on our part. While the actual road map document provides much deeper insight, here are a few trends that we see occurring this year:

• - 2009 will bring with it a greater understanding and acceptance of TransPromo, fueled by better education and deeper penetration.
• - Vendors and service providers will focus increased efforts on sales force education for TransPromo in order to be better equipped to sell clients and prospects on the value that TransPromo can bring to their organizations.
• - Interest in mid-market TransPromo applications will lead to increased competition between both TransPromo statement print providers and software providers positioning themselves to enable mid-market TransPromo applications.

Overall, TransPromo is definitely poised to become more conspicuous in 2009. We are well aware of the potential of TransPromo here at InfoTrends. Aside from our TransPromo study and the third annual U.S. TransPromo Summit.

So what do you think about TransPromo? Will Trans Meet Promo in 2009? Please comment and let us know.

Bryan Yeager is a Senior Research Analyst in the Production Workflow and Customized Communications Services group at InfoTrends.

There is a lot of hype surrounding Personalized URLs these days, but what’s the reality behind the hype? Do these applications deliver on the promise? “Personalized URLs: Beyond the Hype,” the fourth in Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, addresses this question.

Personalized URL applications have a wide variety of uses, including sales prospecting, customer surveying, event registrations, information dissemination, and obtaining customer and user feedback. But while these applications have generated a lot of success, they have generated a lot of disappointment, too—primarily because of a lack of realistic expectations.

This reports provides a no-nonsense look at the role of personalized URLs and 1:1 printing in increasing the effectiveness of companies’ marketing programs. It looks at key application categories, “best in class” case studies, lessons learned over time, and best practices for optimizing their use.

The report’s author argues that one of the reasons that many personalized URL applications have struggled is that personalized URLs (including PURLs, RURLs, and other -URLs) need to be seen as merely a vehicle for response. These campaigns must adhere to the best practices for all 1:1 (personalized) printing campaigns rather than relying on the personalized URL, itself, as the primary motivator of response.

The report includes analysis of nearly a decade of personalized URL case studies from around the industry, with a list of best practices drawn from common denominators among the most successful programs.  Notable were the use of multiple media to reinforce the message and the utilization of additional elements, such as over-sized postcards or lumpy mail, to drive response—even more than we tend to see in non-personalized URL 1:1 (personalization) programs.

For more information on this and the other Marketer’s Primer Series Reports, visit the Digital Printing Reports website. Other reports in the series include “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models,” “1:1 (Personalized Printing): Boosting Profits Through Relevance,” and “Web-to-Print: Transforming Document Management and Marketing Models.”

Have you ever noticed how everyone these days is pushing the green angle to their business? There is a reason for it. To some extent, it’s because it’s just the thing to do and it’s an excuse to get another press release out there. But it’s also because there are customers who really do care about their social responsibility. If you can’t hook them on features, benefits, or price, try green! This is yet another angle that might get their attention.

Recently, on The Inspired Economist blog, I wrote:

When I look at my email inbox, it seems that double-digit percentages of incoming emails now have something to do with green. Manufacturers, retailers, service providers — they are all finding green angles to their company announcements. . .

This leads me to wonder—what’s YOUR green twist? Marketing studies repeatedly confirm that consumers are looking to buy from companies that care about the environment. At a corporate or business level, are you looking for ways to let your customers and prospects know about your commitment to green? If not, you should be.

This post was inspired, in part, by the tagline used by St. John Associates in an industry discussion group on LinkedIn.  I was impressed that the company used this platform to promote its commitment to environmental sustainability to anyone reading the posts — and it promoted, not recycled paper and FSI certification (as we see so often), but the company’s accomplishments in wind power and carbon credits. Every time someone opened one of these posts, there it was. Interesting use of real estate! Kudos.

What are YOU doing to position your company for green?

Read the original Inspired Economist post.

Read all of my “Greening Print Marketing” posts.

“In a difficult economy like this marketing budgets are tight. The only projects that get funded are the ones that can prove strong ROI. That’s why you need a way to prove to clients that your solutions will deliver.”

This quote came from a November 18 press release from Caslon & Company promoting a PODi Webinar, “Promoting the Value of Your Solution.” The seminar is designed to promote Caslon & Company’s Value Calculators, a tool for determining ROI projections from 1:1 printing jobs, which I think is a terrific idea.

But the thing that struck me in reading this was the spate of discussions I’ve had recently in which it’s become clear that proving value for a 1:1 printing campaign is the all-important first step, but it’s not enough by itself. Even the most successful 1:1 applications — in which the results are measured and recorded — are often not repeated. This is something that has proven to be extremely frustrating even for the most proactive 1:1 printing / marketing solutions providers.

Recently, I’ve been posting this question in various areas of LinkedIn. Here are some of the interesting and insightful reasons that have been shared with me.

• Clients do not follow up and verify results.

(Which leads to the question: Are printers following up to find out why clients may not be repeating? If it’s a matter of too much time and effort, are these printers letting their customers mistakenly think that repeat applications take the same time commitment as the initial deployment—and if so . . . why?

• Despite the results, the projects just take too long and are too time-consuming. Marketers like the results but just don’t want to put that much work in again.
• The sales cycle is so long that, once a project is completed, the original marketing team or individual at the company who spearheaded the project has moved on and the printer’s salesperson must start from scratch.

And thanks to Peter Wann, industry consultant, for bringing up this very overlooked but critical disconnect in the process:

• Clients may track response rates, but they don’t track conversion rates. If the client isn’t tracking the conversion rate, the results may not be tracking back to the original campaign.

This insight is particularly thought-provoking and may be one of the dark underbellies of the 1:1 (personalized) printing sales process. As with all challenges facing this marketplace, the solutions won’t be simple or easy, but they start with acknowledgement of the problem, followed by frank and open discussion.

Have your insights or experience to share? Comment on this post or log into my profile on LinkedIn and click on the Answers link and share them!

I’m used to looking at the case studies from digital press and personalization software suppliers for the marketing effectiveness of 1:1 printing, but as “green” continues to gather steam as a hot marketing angle, I’m starting to rethink how I position this information.

This morning, I repositioned a case study from AutoNation and DME that many in this industry may already be familiar with.

In this study, DME overhauled its 1:1 printing workflow to enable AutoNation to eliminate its need to inventory and warehouse pre-printed offset shells that were subsequently personalized using black-and-white overprinting. Using XMPie’s PersonalEffect software, DME changed its workflow so that each campaign is single project, even though each campaign involves multiple brands and dealers. The business rules for composing the individualized offers are programmed independent of the design. All elements become data-driven variable objects instead of static fields. Thus, instead of using pre-printed stock, AutoNation’s campaigns are now printed, as needed, using plain, unprinted paper. The results were impressive. Responses to its direct mail pieces went up 35%. Revenues were up 65%.

But in this environment — so hot for green — these may not end up being the most compelling results. Consider the “green” impact of this switch. AutoNation no longer must warehouse pre-printed stock for different dealerships and brands.

Consequently, it also saves …

• the carbon footprint and resources used to pre-print each set of shells
• the carbon footprint and cost of warehousing those shells
• the fuel costs of transporting them.

Click here for the permanent archive containing the full article.